GOP to make EPA a climate 'battleground'

House Republicans will turn the spending bill that funds the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department into a “battleground” to attack President Obama’s climate plan.

Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho) said he’ll use the bill that funds those agencies to give lawmakers a chance to weigh in on Obama’s plan, which largely goes around Congress by using executive powers.

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“President Obama has once again demonstrated to the American people that he has little regard for the legislative process or concern for the economic impact of his regulatory appetite,” Simpson, chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee on Interior and the Environment, said in a statement.

Obama’s plan, which he unveiled Tuesday, relies on a suite of administrative actions that don’t require the consent of Congress.

It is doubtful the effort to withhold funds from the EPA would be successful in the Senate, where Democrats hold a 54-46 majority. Most Democrats would back the president, though a number of centrists have criticized Obama’s policies on coal and energy.